There once was a
moment like no other. It took place when a photographer's finger released the
shutter of his camera and captured this near-wintery sight more than a hundred
years ago. In reality, every moment is like no other in that change never
ceases motion. This could be a street in any of thousands of small towns in the United
States or elsewhere, but it is where what once was my town.
Walking in the
footsteps of history ....
What you are
seeing is an old post card, wintery view of West Front Street in the
southwestern Minnesota town in which I spent the first 18 years of my life. I
walked this street many times as a boy and a teenager. There would be a .22
caliber Mossberg Model 142-A with a scope or a Winchester Model 77 rifle
occasionally over my shoulder or, in the autumn, a .16 gauge Stevens Model
77-AC shotgun, as I made my way from my home to where the town ended and the
countryside began.
Such was the
"relaxed attitude" toward 10-11-12-year-old boys with guns during my childhood
and years as a young man. Most men and boys who lived there hunted and everyone
knew both boys and girls took a "hunter safety course" with certified
instructors before legally being allowed to hunt.
Sometimes the
guns were cased; other times they were not. Never were they loaded. That part
of the ritual came after the last house on the edge of town had been passed and
could only be seen by looking back over the shoulder.
Guns and hunting
were part of our culture.
The photograph,
to me, appears to have been taken on an October or a November day, recalling the frosty
mornings with dustings of snow when I walked the same sidewalk on my way to the
lake to intercept ducks and geese on their southward pilgrimage.
When hunting,
the morning walk would be well before sunrise so I could be on the other side
of the lake perched on a small island where I could see the sun rising over
75-foot cliffs across a half-mile of open water. There were lights on in some
houses at times as early risers prepared for a day of work.
The walk in the
afternoon came with sunset only minutes away and meant running and racing in
hopes of catching a shot at a late flight of ducks coming in from feasting in
farm fields to "bed down" on the lake. Crops were not picked to the last kernel
of corn then as they are now, in this "modern era" of agriculture.
Thus, endeth the parable for the first day of November 2021 ....
(Part 2 of two segments will appear in a few days)
8 comments:
Interesting how a snapshot in time can bring on such a flood of memories. There's a particular railroad crossing that my husband can't drive over without reminiscing about walking down the tracks in his childhood with either a fishing pole or a .22, depending on the season. He always says he expects to see kids walking down the tracks. I tell him I don't think many kids do stuff like that anymore.
I can identify with your husband in the sense of walking along railroad tracks with a .22 or, during pheasant season, with a shotgun. By the time I was 16 I had two "Golden Labradors," one very adept at pheasant hunting and the other more of a water wonder. I would have one working each side of the tracks.
Later in life, I ran into one of my best friends from high school days while former wife No. 2 and I were walking tracks looking for pheasants after a fruitless morning in a duck blind. Randy and his "significant other" were riding horses along the tracks. We stopped and talked a while. That was the last time I saw him.
I still walk tracks when the opportunity arises, almost always with a .22 rifle or pistol for company. And, I still love the sound of train whistles, especially in the night .... I can hear one right now ....
Thank you, Kelly, for your visit and your comment. If there are any more "nice" days in your neck of the woods, you and your husband should take a nature walk for a mile or two along railroad tracks .... both "magic" and history will be your companions ....
Cottoen wood ja!
Der har jeg sett mye bilder fra.
.Tror det var der Rølvaag skrev eller var fra
Fint bilde og story!
Kjekt å høre hvor dine røtter er fra
Hilsen
Anita
Do not get too excited, Norsk jente. I knew any young lady clever enough to look for reflections in windows to catch a glimpse of a photographer would not miss the word Cottonwood written on the post card. I thought of covering it, but decided I would rather tease by leaving it visible. There is a community in Minnesota named Cottonwood, but there also is a Cottonwood County with a number of small, rural communities, any one of which might be the original campsite of Fram.
Nice try, Anita, but the mystery still remains ....
As for our friend, Ole Edvart Pedersen (later changing it to Ole Edvart Rølvaag), he was born in a fishing village on the island of Dønna in Nordland County in Norway. After arriving in America, he worked on his uncle's farm near Elk Point in South Dakota and then went to school in Canton, Minnesota. He lived in Minneapolis for a time. You might recall I used his novel, "The Boat of Longing," to retrace many of his footsteps there. Many places where Rølvaag lived and worked remain recognizable.
Rølvaag went to Saint Olaf College in Northfield in Minnesota and later taught there and lived there until his death. Rølvaag also wandered a bit, including taking teaching assignments to work with immigrants in Nebraska and Wyoming. Clarkfield, Minnesota (fictional for Elk Point), is a focal point in "The Third Life of Per Smevik."
As for the other material in the post, all is true and accurate to the best of my recollection ....
Thank you, clever girl from Norway, for coming and for commenting. Sorry, about teasing you, but it is an affliction I am cursed with .... or whatever ....
Off kås I know!
The town with many churches ! :)
But dont worrie i am not looking for any thing I already now but that Cotton wood town or place is interesting to me .
Iam writing on some stuff from the The Treaty of Mendota 1861 The Dakota War of 1862, also known as the Sioux Uprising, the Dakota Uprising, the Sioux Outbreak of 1862, the Dakota Conflict, the U.S.-Dakota War of 1862, or Little Crow's War, after reading ,The last letter, home to sweden by William Moberge.It is trilogy of his series The Emigrants. The four books, published between 1949 and 1959, deal with the Swedish emigration to the United States in the 19th century, and are the subject of two movie adaptations and a musical.( Among other works are Raskens (1927) and Ride This Night (1941), a historical novel of a 17th-century rebellion in Småland acknowledged for its subliminal but widely recognised criticism of the Hitler regime.)
I guess will publish soon!!!
Friendly Anita!
There are two lakes in Minnesota and one river and a few townships named Cottonwood. There also is a Cottonwood, South Dakota, and a few more towns with the same name here and there. I am teasing you again, Anita.
There is much material about the 1862 Sioux Uprising and I have read a great deal of it, as well as seen many of the battle sites associated with it. A couple of footnotes: The largest mass hanging in the United States took place on December 26, 1862, when 38 Santee Sioux variously convicted of crimes during the uprising were executed in Mankato, my college town. One of my ancestors rode with the Renville Rangers, who with army troops pursued the Indians into North Dakota. He was killed on July 2, 1867, in Kansas when a 12-man cavalry patrol was wiped out by a war party of Lakota Sioux and a few Cheyenne.
Fascinating stuff ....
My background is slight in terms of your Vilhelm Moberg / Swedish emigration material, so I will look forward to your post.
Take care and be safe, Anita, and thank you, for your continued presence. You truly are a kul norsk jente ....
Hah hah kul norsk jenta!
Ser frem til din neste post !
Jeg tenker på at det ikke var rart Sioxenen gikk til krig .De fikk jo ikke de pengene de hadde blitt lovd.70 ooo i gull var de lovd i henhold til Mendota avtalen i 1861!
Men den ubeskrivelige vold de utførte mot de nye menneskene i landet er ufattelig.Hvor hadde de lært å utøve slikt barbari?Alex sier de var barbarer og uvitende.Jeg sier ett voldsomt sinne spesielt fra Little Crow på grunn av hungersnøden de opplevde.William Sturgis var en helt han var modig ! .Men forhandlingene med Red Iron og A.Ramsey i Mankota fant vel ikke frem.Redsel var stor" All trough the gloom and light th e fate of a thousand Minnesotans was rising."sitat Long Fellow.
Veldig intresangt at du har noen i din familie som ble berørt av dette opprøret.Har du skrivet noe post om det?Dette på grunn av jeg bruker det som info i ett annet arbeide jeg holder på med men det tar tid.
Tusen takk for svar og du trenger ikke svare på denne kommentaren.
Om ikke annet den linken til Siox opprøret.
Takknemlig er jeg som kjenner en i Minnesota
Ha det fint !
Anita
I may not have to reply to your comment, Anita, but I will ....
The first recorded European / Native American conflict was the Tiguex War during the winter of 1540-41 in what is now New Mexico. It involved Francisco Coronado against the Tiwa Indians. In what became the United States, Powhatan Indians killed 347 English settlers throughout the Virginia colony during the first Powhatan War in 1622. The moral is that there had been plenty of time to practice barbarism by all participants by the time of the 1862 uprising in Minnesota.
And no, I did not have these events or figures in my head, but, in many areas, the internet has turned research into a matter of minutes, rather than often a matter of days and a trip to a library.
To me, the bottom line is that the Sioux and other tribes were constantly being cheated and exploited, but did that require murdering innocent people?
I periodically mention my ancestor killed by Indians in Kansas, but never written a post specifically about him. He was in the 2nd U.S. Cavalry at the time and technically engaged in a "war" with a number of Plains Indian tribes. I distinguish between military combatants and their contract employees from civilians. By the way, his father personally retrieved the body and he is buried in a cemetery here in Saint Paul.
Yes, I think you are a kul norsk jente .... later ....
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